


Galvanize

by neraxx



Series: MultiSaku Month 2018 [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Accidental Fighting, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And I'm not even sorry about it, Drama, Drama & Romance, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Humor, Romance, Sakura Doesn't Know Her own Strength, This is trash, medical student Sakura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 18:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14858039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neraxx/pseuds/neraxx
Summary: gal·va·nize (v): shock or excite (someone), typically into taking action.::Sakura’s victorious wail was cut short, however, as she became immediately aware of two things.One, her hand was in a lot of pain.And two, Ino was nowhere near Sakura.::[AU][Canon Divergence][Naruto x Sakura]





	Galvanize

**Author's Note:**

> written for multisaku month 2018  
> pairing: naruto x sakura  
> prompt: I got really excited about something and I accidentally punched you in the face

* * *

**G A L V A N I Z E**

* * *

“They’re not going to materialize out of thin air,” Ino drawled from her position against the opposite wall. “Stop staring at the door, Forehead.”

Sakura gave an un-ladylike snort in response, but heeded her friend’s instruction, jade eyes shifting from the glass doors to the blonde.

“I’m just nervous,” Sakura offered lamely.

Ino lifted her right hand, indifferently assessing her nailbeds in the low lighting. She didn’t immediately reply to Sakura’s declaration, and as a result, the cherry-haired woman scowled.

The ball of anxiety sitting low in the pit of Sakura’s stomach didn’t allow her to be irate for long, however, and as Sakura felt her face softening, her eyes were impulsively drawn back in the direction of the front door.

“Knock it off Sakura,” Ino chided once more, now perusing the nails on her left hand.

Sakura turned back towards her best friend with a pout, cheeks rounded as she gave a tiny huff of exasperation.

Ino only smirked, a sly quirk of her lips as she idly picking at a cuticle that didn’t quite meet her standards.

“Stop frowning. It’ll give you wrinkles.”

“You sound like my mother,” Sakura griped, crossing her arms. She pressed herself more fully against the wall at her back, shifting her stance so she was at a more comfortable angle.

There was a moment’s pause before Sakura added, “Are you going to say anything to help me calm down or are you going to keep unnecessarily chastising me?”

Azure eyes slanted in her direction and Ino raised a single, curious brow.

“I’m going to pick on you all I want,” The blonde stated with an air of certain finality. “Instead of enjoying today’s beautiful weather, you’re holding me hostage in the lobby of your _dingy_ apartment building, and if you think-”

Someone cleared their throat, interrupting Ino’s prattling.

Both girls glanced in the direction of the building’s security guard who sat behind his desk next to the service elevators. The older gentlemen settled his narrowed gaze on Ino, not trying to hide his displeased frown caused by her descriptive vocabulary.

Offering him a sheepish half-smile in apology, Ino cleared her throat before looking at Sakura again.

“As I was saying,” Her friend started. Though this time, Ino’s voice a decibel softer than before. “You are holding me against my will for the _mailman_ , Sakura. The mailman. We could be doing absolutely anything outside right now. We _should_ be at the _beach_ with the rest of our friends. I didn’t spend my winter going to the gym and starving myself of carbs to _not_ be in a bikini, _damn it_. And yet, here we are. Inside on a sunny day.”

Before Sakura could formulate a counter argument – because she did feel _somewhat_ remorseful for occupying Ino’s free time – the lobby doors swung open, grabbing their attention.

A group of men close to their age entered the building, chattering gaily amongst themselves. Though Ino’s eyes were promptly drawn to the boys, Sakura’s regard was directed elsewhere.

She slowly pushed away from the wall, her focus on the middle-aged woman who had slipped into the building behind the gaggle of noisy males. Emerald eyes honed in on the messenger bag slung over the older woman’s right shoulder, decorated with an embroidered emblem of Konoha’s postal service.

Sakura stood, stock-still, watching as the mailwoman made her way towards the wall of built-in mailboxes, her ring of keys rattling as she opened and closed the different slots, slipping envelopes of varying shapes and sizes into their designated hovels.

The closer the postal employee drew towards Sakura, the more wary the petite woman seemed to become, her hands beginning to twitch at her sides fretfully.

“Waiting for me, dear?” The mail courier chirped in greeting, a lopsided grin pulling at the corner of her mouth.

Sakura nodded hastily, the jerky movement causing her teeth to click together.

“Name?” The post retainer inquired.

The question fell on deaf ears as Sakura found herself involuntarily hypnotized by the stack of paperwork in the woman’s grasp.

_Would it be in there?_

_Did she make it in?_

_What would she do if she didn’t?_

Sakura was broken from her trance when the mailwoman repeated her question. Emerald eyes flickered towards the older woman’s face, and she unintelligently responded with, “Huh?”

As her mind finally caught up with her, Sakura blinked once, then twice, before shaking her head slightly.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Haruno Sakura. Apartment 34B.”

The courier seemed concerned with her obtuse fumble but said nothing, fingers sifting through the heap of remaining letters. It didn’t take long for the mailwoman to find what she was looking for, and with an excited ‘ _ah-ha!’_ she plucked a manila envelope from the pile.

She held out the sealed package in Sakura’s direction, and the coral-haired woman seized it with such ferocious haste that the postal employee flinched.

“Thank you,” Sakura murmured distractedly, not taking her eyes off the package in her hand.

She didn’t listen to whatever else the mailwoman had to say. Sakura took one short step backward before she spun on her heel, turning her back to everyone in the lobby.

Sakura tried to fight back the swell of emotion rising in her throat, eyes peering at the top right corner of the envelope to confirm that the package was from Sakura’s desired sender. She slowly flipped over the bundle, jerkily pulling on the metal clasp that held it closed.

She was vaguely aware of someone having come to stand behind her, felt the warmth of a body tickle against her spine. Assuming that it was only Ino, curious to see the contents of the letter, Sakura paid the other person little mind as she extracted the contents of the manila sleeve.

Sakura drank in words typed on the packet’s cover page, her world narrowing line by line, and by the time her eyes reached the bottom of the letter, the pinkette was practically vibrating with repressed giddiness.

She shot up abruptly, jumping from one foot to the other, spinning in a circle while pumping one fist into the air.

“I did it! I got accepted! _Shannaro_! _”_

Sakura’s victorious wail was cut short, however, as she became immediately aware of two things.

One, her hand was in _a lot_ of pain.

The celebratory punch struck something hard and extremely solid, and Sakura swore she felt a crunch underneath her knuckles.

And two, Ino was nowhere near Sakura.

The blonde, who hadn’t vacated her spot against the opposite wall, was now staring at Sakura with a mix of shock and amusement. Two men were standing next to Ino.

One was leaning on the wall next to Ino, his forearm braced above her head, while the other hand was tucked into his jeans pocket.  His shaggy brown hair and black eyes were common enough features, but the pair of striking red facial tattoos painted on both of his cheeks was something Sakura would have been able to recognize. He wasn’t a resident of this apartment complex.

The other Sakura recognized from photos. He was a friend of Ino’s, a childhood friend and if she remembered his name correctly, that was Choji. He was broader, more massive set than either of his companions; long, spiky brown hair pulled away from his face. He was eating a bag of potato chips, seemingly uninterested in whatever was transpiring between Ino and his friend, though his dark eyes were intently looking in her direction.

The brunette, the one with the facial tattoos, tore his astonished gaze from Sakura to settle it on the space to her immediate left. His lips twitched awkwardly like he was trying to suppress a smile and his shoulders shook from an unknown force

Tilting her head so she could follow his line of sight, Sakura came face to face with a tuft of messy golden hair. It took her a second to realize what she was staring at was another man, shoulders hunched up to his ears and his body curled in on himself.

A short bark of laughter startled her and Sakura snapped her head back in the direction of the others.

The male next to Ino was now howling outright; full body rumbles of laughter that caused him to lean forward and cross his arms over his abdomen. Ino joined in soon enough, though she had the courtesy to try and hide her giggled delight behind the back of her hand. The heavier set man looked amused, he made no move to throw his cards in with their joviality.

A pained groan escaped the blond next to her and, all of a sudden, realization began to dawn.

“Oh my god,” Sakura breathed. “ _Oh my god!”_

Panic-stricken, she scrambled to his side, exclaiming, “I am _so_ , so sorry! Are you alright? Where did I hit you?”

“Damn, Forehead,” Ino called out, still tittering. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

Sakura shot a dark glare in the taller woman’s direction and snapped, “Shut it, _Ino_! This isn’t funny.”

When the rosette looked back in the direction of the wounded male before her, a pair of dark cobalt eyes peered out at her from behind spread fingers. Sakura observed his eyes widened a fraction of an inch before the man suddenly straightened, pulling his hands away from his face.

There was a wheezing noise, something high pitched and nasily before the man rasped, “I think I’m alright.”

There was nothing _alright_ about it.

The man’s nose is twisted at an awkward angle, blood dripping from both nostrils to smear along his upper lip.

The sight caused the peanut gallery across the room to burst out in a fresh bout of boisterous laughter, but Sakura cannot bring herself to reprimand any of them, mouth parted in a small, startled ‘ _o’_ as the horror of what she did wrapped around her.

Oh god. _Oh god._

She knew him. She knew this man.

He was the new tenant that moved in two doors down from her about a week ago.

She _punched_ her new neighbor in the nose.

_She_ broke her _neighbor’s_ nose.

“Naruto, right?” Sakura began hastily. “I am so, so sorry! I don’t know what came over me. I’ve been waiting for an acceptance letter for medical school, and I just got so excited. I didn’t see you standing there, and I am so, so, _so_ sorry. I think –”

Naruto cut her off with a dismissive wave of his hand, using the collar of his shirt to wipe away the blood under his nose gently.

“It’s okay,” He assured without malice. “You’re Sakura, if I remember correctly? The girl who lives down the hall? In the future, I’ll remember to keep an obligatory three feet away from you when you’re checking your mail.”

He tried to smile, to accentuate his joke but his teeth are stained red, it looks almost sinister and the attempted grin causes him to flinch, the movement uncomfortably shifting his wounded nose.

Instinctively, Sakura reached out, brushing her fingertips against the discolored skin on the ridge right between his eyes. Naruto winces at the touch, and her face contorts into a grimace of shame.

He immediately closed his fingers around her wrist, effectively capturing her and Sakura can't help but be momentarily distracted by how much larger his hand is than hers, his sun-kissed skin a stark comparison to her own.

Naruto shifted her hand away from his face before releasing his grip.

“Okay so that totally hurts,” He said sheepishly.

“You are definitely not _okay_ ,” Sakura affirmed. “We should really get you to a hospital.”

Sakura swore she could hear another snicker come from the direction Ino was standing, but she chose to ignore it.

“Just give me a minute to run upstairs and get my things. I can call a friend of mine, Shizune. She’s a nurse at Konoha Medical.”

Naruto looked like he was about to rebuff her, but Sakura didn’t wait around to hear it, swiftly making her way towards the stairwell and clambering up them two at a time.

* * *

-o-

* * *

Naruto stared at the spot Sakura disappeared from, too distracted to say much else. There is an uncomfortable lull of silence before Kiba’s voice called out, “So that’s her, huh?”

The question catches the attention of the fair-haired woman next to him, the same one that he had been shamelessly hitting on a moment prior.

“What about, Sakura?” She inquired, intrigued.

Disregarding the glower that Naruto shot at him from across the room, Kiba cocked his thumb in blond’s direction and snidely said, “For the last week this guy has been going on and on about the cute girl with pink hair that lives down the hall. He was going to finally man up and talk to her when we walked in, before the whole ‘punching him in the face’ incident.”

“Yeah,” Chouji murmured around a mouthful of chips. “He’s been saying that he wants to ask her out. If they do get together, we all know who’s going to be wearing the _pants_ in that relationship.”

A cough echoed throughout the lobby then and everyone’s attention was drawn to Sakura, who now stood at the bottom of the stairs, clutching her purse to her chest, a flush dusting both of her cheeks.

The pinkette’s eyes were trained on the trio standing on one side of the lobby, her mouth opens as if she was going to say something, but must have thought better of it because, without another word, Sakura turned to Naruto and asked, “Ready?”

He nods dumbly, trailing behind Sakura as she brusquely makes her way towards the double doors.

As they pass the blonde – _Ino –_ he had heard Sakura call her, both eyebrows are raised high on her forehead, and she casts a speculative glance in Naruto’s direction.

“Well,” Ino hummed after a short pause, following them out the door. There’s a glint in her eyes that makes Naruto feel extremely uneasy. “I _just_ can’t wait to see how this turns out.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading!
> 
> I have a [tumblr](https://nerazennxx.tumblr.com/)! Come by and say hi!


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